Raven Cycle-- Alternate Ending
by Cactus.Flower17
Summary: Let's face it, the book did not live up to a lot of reader expectations. If you're anything like me, you love the raven cycle series. Also, if you're anything like me, you were horribly disappointed by the lazy, anti-climatic ending to the series. I personally was so upset with the ending that I had to write my own. Major spoiler alert. (OBVIOUSLY)
1. Chapter 1

So, if you're anything like me, you love the raven boys series. Also, if you're anything like me, you were horribly disappointed by the half-assed, anti-climatic ending to the series. I personally was so upset with the ending that I had to write my own. Major spoiler alert. (OBVIOUSLY)

We were left with so many unanswered questions.

"what happens to Maura and the Grey Man?"

"what ends up happening between Gansey & Blue?"

"Does Adam forego his dream of leaving Henrietta to stay with Ronan?"

"What the hell happened to Noah?"

"What do you mean Glendower is DEAD?" (seriously? After all that "third sleeper" humpetty dumpety?

This story takes place after the 36th chapter in The Raven King because this is when the story starts to suck. This is right after Blue gets released from the hospital and they have a going away party for Declan and Matthew. Characters which will not be in this ending: Henry. Robobee. Laudier. Piper. (Mostly) Why, you ask? Because NO BODY CARES ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS! There are two scenes I will be including in this alternative ending, and that is Gwenllian chasing Artemus up a tree as well as the conversation between Blue and her father.

Hopefully, this can give you all some closure, as it helped to give to me. I did my best. Enjoy.


	2. Chapter 2

Blue and Gansey left, leaving Adam alone with Ronan. He didn't know what to say. Adam's skin felt electric, plucked at by some invisible string, pulling him towards him. He realized, belatedly, the same way that he knew, inexplicably, that Cabeswater was Ronan's, that their path's were entertwined. The thunderstorm raging in his veins drowned out any sensible thought. All he could think of was Ronan's lips on his. The simplest thing. Also, the most complex. So many wants and desires raged inside of him. This new feeling, licked awake by Ronan, like a tiger pacing the confines of a cage. This wounded part of him that could scarcely believe that anyone, let alone someone as strong as Ronan, would want him. But he opened his mouth and let him in anyways.

Blue came into the kitchen at 300 fox way to find a very disgruntled Gwenllian. She crouched on top of an already crowded counter, plucking the petals off an innocent daisy.

"What are you doing?" Blue asked suspiciously.

"Lot's of things to do, my little love."

"She chased Artemus up a tree." Calla spoke from behind Blue, leaning against the door jam with a hot cup of coffee in her hands and a scowl on her face

."Come again?"

"You heard me. Miss thang over here got tired of waiting for him to come out. So she broke down the pantry door with a lamp and chased him out."

"A… lamp? Where is he, now?"

Calla scoffed, shaking her head. "See for yourself."

Blue didn't know what to make of this, so she cast Gwenllian a dark look and stormed outside. "That better not have been my favorite lamp," she grumbled as she past her. Outside was trees and grass but no Artemus, not anywhere.

"Where is he?" She growled to the creature who had trailed after her, the one who was concurrently picking her nails and twirling her hair.

"He's in the tree."

"There's nothing up there."

"No, little love." She touched the bark. "He's _in_ the tree." Her eyes were as wide as her hair was tall and Blue took a step back, sniffing.

" _In_ the tree?!"

"Don't you see, little lily? Some are wakers, and some put to sleep. I put the king to rest. Just as I put that other thing to rest."

"The Demon?"

"Yes."

Blue shook her head, trying to understand. "How did the demon come to be?"

"It was dreamed into being."

"There was a Greywaren?"

"Yes. The King's cousin."

Suddenly, it all made sense to Blue. "Gwenllian stabbed him."

Her father sighed. Or more like, the wind rustled through the leaves in what could only be the tree equivalent of a sigh. "Not all dreamers dream good things. He was dreaming up a war for the King."

"To Usurp him?"

"Rightly so. It was a dream meant to kill a king."

"So.. the demon is this long ago Greywaren's nightmare? How did you banish it?"

"Oh, hundreds of years ago, it was just a little thing, you see. I probably could have just squashed it, but I thought I was being _nice_ by letting it live in that cave unscathed. That's why Gwenllian hates me so. It was only when I went back, that I realized my mistake. You see, every object a dreamer dreams is linked to every other dreamer who comes afterwards. That is why one must be careful of what they dream. This particular nightmare…is still bound by cords to every dreamer. It feeds off of every negative emotion the dreamer feels."

"The… current dreamers?"

"Yes."

Blue thought of every scowl, every glare, every curse word that had emanated from Ronan, and she knew that they were in trouble. Who knew that the very darkness within Ronan had ultimately become a growing, living thing? The darkness of his ancestors on top of that to boot?

 _Not all dreamers dream good things._

She thought of the greed of Niall Lynch, and how he had used his power for insatiable consumerism. She thought of the grief, despair, and rage that had followed after his horrible and untimely death. And, she thought, how much food this demon must have had to grow, steadily, like a cancer in the dark, down in the deep, deep, deep.

"How did you know to check on it?"

There was a long pause. "When your mother was pregnant with you… well…" He sighed. "I wanted to make sure that the world you were brought into was safe. But when I went to check on the demon… I underestimated it's power… I was trapped in it's mental embrace. It knew my heart, and it knew that if it could hold me, it would lure others to it as well. Perhaps the woman I had fallen in love with."

Blue was silent at this. So, her father had not left, arbitrarily; he had had a reason. A reason, her, to make the world safe. Blue felt moisture pool and glitter in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Blue." Was all Artemus said. She knew, down in the bottom of her heart, that he meant it. It made up for something, if not everything. It helped to stitch, a bit, a part of the bottomless hole in her heart that had been her missing, absent, way-ward father. But it did not make up for it all. She steeled herself and cleared her throat.

"Do you know where Glendower is?"

The tree was silent. Why would he not give her the answer to this? "Please. We need to know. Everything depends on it!"

There was only silence.

"Artemus!"

The tree would say no more. Her father had returned to his silence. And there would be no more words retreating from him.

Blue went back to the porch, frustrated, but heart overfull with something she couldn't quite explain. She let out a frustrated sigh.

"How do you wake up someone who is sleeping?" She asked Gansey and Adam.

"Something shocking, I suppose." Adam said.

What could they do? What was there to do? She thought of the beautiful forest, with its enchanted leaves. She thought of Gansey, with a school full of fish swimming around him. The thought of it no longer existing… it made her heart ache and clench. She thought of Aurora, that beautiful dreamt queen in her rose garden house. Where would she live, without Cabeswater? Could a dream keep on dreaming without a dreamer?

"We can't just sit here and do nothing while the demon unmakes everything!"

Blue knew, with the firm set of her mother's brow, that she was about to say something crazy. "You're right. We must banish it back to the deep."

"How do we do that?" Blue asked. Her mother took her hands in her own.

"We'll do a banishing ritual."

Doubt licked through her. "Will that be enough?"

Maura's eyes were sad. "It's the only thing I can think of."

Gansey had no other ideas. If only he could find Glendower, and have his wish granted. He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. What would he even wish for? He had wanted to ask for Noah's life; yet he couldn't just leave the demon running amuck in the magical dreamspace of Ronan's imagining. Not when all that it could undo was only everything. And Gansey doubted that the King would grant _both_ wishes. Perhaps, he thought, there was a small chance that he could order Cabeswater to show him the location of the king. He knew, in his bones, that he had to find his king. It had always been the ending.

"Then, it's decided. To Cabeswater, we go." Adam said.

"Holy fuck," said Ronan. "This is about to be a shit show."

Ronan, Gansey, Adam and Blue (and Noah, who was naught but bare haze) piled into Ronan's BMW. Calla and Maura and the Grey man took the truck.

The drive to Cabeswater was the longest they had ever known. A thick silence hung in the air and on the tip of Gansey's thin-pressed lips.

When they got to Cabeswater, a thick grey cloud hung over just that section of forest.

"Looks like it's raining." Adam said, solemnly.


End file.
